System updates can generally include any of a great variety of items, such as OS patches, software installation or upgrades, and compliance actions. Often, the updating of production systems can be risky, non-deterministic and result in penalties; the updates themselves are often not understood by system administrators, and troubleshooting can involve a great deal of speculation and online reading, if not result in frequent misdiagnoses. Generally, conventional efforts have presented tremendous shortcomings in characterizing system updates and providing troubleshooting hints (or guidance) to system administrators.